Merrill Lynch Fined for Overcharging

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) said today it had fined Bank of America unit Merrill Lynch $2.8 million for overcharging customers and ordered the brokerage to pay $32 million in remediation to affected customers.

The fines stemmed from a series of unrelated mistakes that occurred between April 2003 and December 2011, according to Finra, both before and after Bank of America said it would purchase the company in 2008.

Among the mistakes: computer programming errors that caused customer fees to be miscalculated and other errors that prevented trade confirmations from being sent out on time.

In all, Finra says the firm overcharged 94,577 customer accounts for a total of at least $32,174,369.

Merrill Lynch consented to the entry of Finra’s findings without admitting nor denying the charges. The Finra complaint said that Merrill Lynch’s internal review “self-identified” the mistakes.

In a statement, Bank of America Merrill Lynch spokesman William Halldin said that the problems were found by Bank of America after it purchased Merrill Lynch and were primarily the result of accounts being improperly coded.

“We have improved our systems to address these issues, and we have reimbursed affected clients,” he said.